These migraines are killing me. The beginning of the year is just not the best time for good writing for me. I have had a clear day here and there when I could just go hog wild and bust out about 20 pages, but the most I can do on a migraine day/week/month is edit. Because of my lack of fine writing skills at this time, I will provide another short story for you to chomp on. Hope ya’ll are trekkies. Here it is:

Bully Trek
Butterfly Harvey
He wasn’t the bully, I was. That’s how I ended up with a knot on my head, and a new best friend. It’s true, James E. Kirk was a big kid, the biggest kid in our class, but when the teacher called his name on the first day of school we knew he was a prime target.
“James E. Kirk,” Mrs. Thomason read the roll sheets.
“That’s James T. Kirk,” he corrected boldly which roused a few giggles from the rest of the class. The teacher sat a moment.
“James T. Kirk, huh? What’s your middle name?”
“Tiberius!” he said proudly.
“Well, it says Earnest here, James.”
“There must be some mistake.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Thomason said skeptically, “James Tiberius Kirk.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said proudly, “James Tiberius Kirk. My friends call me Jim, but a lovely lady such as yourself can call me Jimmy.”
With that, the whole class rumbled with laughter. Mrs. Thomason had to be at least 50 years old, and I’d never seen Mrs. Thomason turn so red in my life. At first, she looked angry, but as her anger wore off, I swear she turned bubbly. I didn’t know if she was going to scream and send him to the principal’s office, or start hugging and kissing him right there.
“JAMES, T. KIRK!” Mrs. Thomason screeched trying to seem angry, but in fact she was trying not to show how flattered she was. “Can I have a word with you out in the hallway right now, please?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Kirk said loudly, “and, please, call me Jimmy.”
The children exploded at that and as he walked outside I could hear the girls whispering “What a loser.”
“Can you believe this guy?” Dale Arnet, one of my best friends, whispered in my ear.
“Let’s beat him up, man” said Rodger Bowman, my other all time best friend.
I put my fists together “Yeah,” I said, “We’ll get um today at lunch.
Rodger, Dale and I had been old pals since kindergarten. From the snack line to the lunch line, Teachers were always lining us up in ABC order, and that’s how our reign of terror began. It wasn’t our fault, it was just fate the line up was always Dale Arnet, Rodger Bowman, and Eric Brock. Though we were always causing trouble together, the lineup never changed all the way till the sixth grade.
We boys did everything together. There was one time we made that boy with glasses eat dirt. After a while he moved away. Rodger liked to cut of girl’s pig tales, just one side. Rodger was good at making the girls cry. Dale liked to get into fights. Rodger and I were his back up, just in case. We don’t see Dale much. He’s suspended much of the time, which brings me back to that space cadet, Kirk. It was about time for Dale to be suspended again, and Kirk was going to get it.
When Kirk and Mrs. Thomason came back into the room, Mrs. Thomason was more bubbly than ever, and Kirk was grinning. He knew he had made her day and was proud of it. He charmed her right out of her granny panties. We were going to get him for that and we were going to get him good. He was sickening with his gold sweatshirt with the star fleet insignia, and his back tool belt and pants, his golden hair and superior smile. He thought he was better than all of us, and us boys were gonna show him better.
At lunch, we watched him eat alone in the corner of the cafeteria. He was the only one at the table, but it didn’t seem to bother him. His posture was perfect; there was not a hint of slouch on him. His elbows never touched the table. His napkin was in his lap. I heard Dale teasing him. “Hey, Captain Kirk, why are you eating all alone? Did you forget your crew?
Kirk barely reacted and said simply, “My good man, I’ll have you know that this is the captain’s private dining room, and if I wanted company, I would send out an invitation.”
“My mistake, Captain.” Dale sneered.
Rodger and I sat back and laughed. We’d get him as soon as lunch was over, wipe his smug face all over the playground. Captain Kirk was unaffected by our teases, and there were many. People threw corn at him, toppled his milk, and laughed so loud, but Kirk remained in his perfect posture stuffing more mashed potatoes into his chubby smile.
At recess, we waited outside for James T. Kirk and waited and waited. When we re-entered the cafeteria to find him, he was no longer there. We searched for him outside, but he wasn’t there either. There was no way he could have gotten around us, though. That wuss must have been hiding; at least we’d like to think he was hiding.
“Aw, how’d he get passed us?” Rodger whined.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “He’ll just have to get his pounding after school.”
“Yeah, we’ll get him after school.” Dale barked.
Actually, Dale was going to get him after school. I really didn’t need to get suspended again. My grades actually weren’t suffering this year. The summer at the learning center was really starting to pay off. I seemed to be getting my assignments done in half the time. No, like usual, Dale would do the dirty work, and Rodger and I would laugh and taunt and throw rocks.
The boys and I were walking home when we spotted him. He was outside the big old house with a huge fenced lot. The boys and I had always wondered what was back there. Kirk was wearing another gold t-shirt with the star fleet insignia. He wore his bulky black tool belt and tall black leather boots. He had a large black scanning device in his left hand and what looked like a car lighter in his right. He was attempting to scan an oak tree. With him, was a floppy old black lab with pointy ears and a light blue doggy t-shirt with the same star fleet insignia.
“Can you believe this guy?” Said Rodger, “Even his dog is a trekkie.”
“Let’s go get him, Rodge.” Dale snickered.
I kind of felt sorry for the kid, and how he was about to have his bubble burst. He was harmless, of course, but in our town and our school, conformity was everything. If you were the slightest bit different, you were ridiculed, ostracized. If you were different, you were stupid. He was about to discover this painful fact, and so were we.
He hadn’t noticed our approach when he spoke. “Mr. Spock,” he said to the dog. Kirk was still scanning the tree. “I think this is a life form!”
“Hey, Captain Jerk!” Dale taunted
“Gentlemen,” he said pleasantly. “Welcome.” He never came out of character for a second. “I’m Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation Starship Enterprise. This is my first officer, Mr. Spock. You must excuse his appearance. An alien being transferred his brain into this dog and I…haven’t been able to right him yet.”
Dale and Rodger picked up rocks and threw them at captain Kirk. I just laughed, but it wasn’t a mean laugh. I thought it was funny. His dog was a disembodied Spock? This kid was even crazier than I thought.
“Please, Gentlemen. I come in peace,” Kirk pleaded with only a slight hint of nervousness covered up by sheer arrogance. “We mean you no harm.”
“Oh, yea,” Dale said, “You’re gonna be in pieces when we’re done. Let’s get him!”
As we ran at Kirk, Spock barked and hid behind a tree, but Kirk just watched us as we got closer. He put his hands on his hips and whispered to himself, “If that’s the way you want to play it…” Then he put up his fists and yelled, “KAAAAAAAAAAAHN!”
None of us expected a real fight out of this tubby guy, but we were wrong. We were just going to shove him around a bit, threaten him, or perhaps give him a wedgie with his Star Trek undies, but he looked more like Chuck Norris with his flying roundhouse kick that stuck right into Rodger’s cheek. Knocking Rodger to the ground. Kirk turned around and served up a back kick right into Dale’s gut, and Kirk slapped both of Dale’s cheeks with the back of his hands. I jumped in to help, but Kirk smashed his tricorter into the side of my head and the last thing I could remember is Rodger and Dale Running away as my head hit the ground, then all I could see was the blackness of…

Space… the final frontier… These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out life and new civilizations. TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE!
The music rushed at me as my eyes fluttered open. As my vision cleared, I saw his face.
“You okay, Friend?” he asked placing a freezing cold duct taped bag of ice onto my head, which I now realized my head was throbbing.
I moaned and tried to touch my wet forehead, but that’s when I realized I couldn’t move.
“Jamie, I’m going to class now. I’ll be back around 9:00,” an older woman’s voice called from far away behind a closed door.
“Okay, Grandma,” Kirk answered.
Then the front door shut before I had a chance to yell fro help. I squirmed in my chair and panicked when I realized I was tied to the chair with half a roll of duct tape.
“I’m gonna have to ask you to calm down, sir. This force field was put into place for your own safety,” he said as I jerked towards him. The chair rolled and he stepped out of the way. “And the safety of others.”
“Help!” I cried.
“Be quiet!” he yelled, “You’ll wake the Admiral.”
He placed one more piece if duct tape over my mouth and spun my rolling chair several times until I was dizzy.
“If you don’t be quiet, I’ll spin you till you puke.”
That’s when I got a good look at Kirks room. On one side the walls were black and covered with glow in the dark stars. There was a huge life size replica of a shuttle craft that stuck out of the wall. The nose of the shuttle could be cranked open and closed by a long lever. The inside was just large enough to fit Kirk’s twin bed. The nose of the shuttle was open I could see Spock the dog asleep inside. Amongst the thousands of glow-in-the-dark stars were tiny figurines of The Enterprise, Enterprise NX1, Voyager, and DS9. Also there was the Enterprise D. They all hung from the ceiling with thin fish wire. There were also Klingon Birds of prey and Romulin War Birds.
The other side of the room was completely different. It looked like a smaller version of the Bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise. It had a huge view screen built into the wall, which was actually a plasma TV. The TV was controlled by a con station, a very believable con station that was built a few feet back. Then there was the captain’s chair to which I was Duct taped. There were lights and buttons all along the futuristic grey panels along the wall.
“WOW!” I said all muffled from the duct tape covering my mouth. I looked up at the plasma screen where an episode of the original Star Trek was already playing.
“Pretty cool, huh?” said Kirk. “The Admiral built most of it. Other stuff he got on EBAY.”
“Who’s the admiral?” I asked still muffled by the Tape, but he still was able to understand.
“Oh, the admiral is my grandpa.”
Kirk pulled a chair up next to me and held the ice bag to my head as we both watched the view screen. My eyes grew bigger as I saw what was on it. I tried to speak.
“Do you promise not to scream,” he said grabbing the edge of the tape over my mouth. I nodded. Kirk grinned and ripped the tape off along with my premature mustache.
“YOW!” I cried.
“SHHH,” he hissed.
“Sorry,” I said. “Hey, what’s that?” I sad pointing at the screen
“That, friend, is the doomsday machine.”
My eyes grew larger as the giant leach in the middle of space consumed planets and ships. Then I watched as Kirk and Spock fought the crazy captain Decker. Captain Decker finally flew the starship constellation into the monster, destroying it.
“What’s next?” I asked as the ending credits rolled. He looked at me surprised. I was also surprised that I was able to change my mind so quickly about Star Trek. Kirk thought about his next selection. He wanted to make it good to keep me on his side. He went over to the wall and opened a panel. Behind the panel were hundreds upon hundreds of trek videos books and DVD’s. My jaw dropped. I never imagined there were so many episodes of Star Trek in the world.
Kirk rummaged around for a minute. “Have you ever seen the one with the Tribbles?”
“What’s a tribble?” I asked.
Kirk slammed the panel shut and turned to me. “What is a tribble?” he asked back his face turned red and I thought he would explode.
“I don’t know,” I said defensively,” I’ve never heard of a tribble, and I’ve never even seen star trek until today.”
“They are small furry creatures that reproduce like crazy. It’s a good episode,” Kirk said.
“Sure, okay.”
Kirk put the video into a slot in the wall, then sat down at the con. He pushed a few of the blinking buttons activating the view screen. Then he sat back down next to me.
“Where did you get all of those tapes?” I asked.
“I inherited them from the admiral,” Kirk answered.
“I thought you said he was asleep,” I said alarmed.
“He said he wanted to see me enjoy them before he died. He’s kind of sick, though.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, I don’t remember what it’s called, but he had some kind of cancer and a thing I think is called old timers. He’s pretty old, so it makes sense that he’d have that.”
“Yeah,” I said, “So, you live with your grandparents? What happened to your Mom and Dad?”
Kirk stared at the view screen for a long second. Then he answered. “My Dad tried to kidnap me, and my Mom shot him. She’s in jail now. Watch this! Those Klingons hate tribbles. Oh, I love this scene. It’s the bar fight. Watch!”
“Those guys don’t look like Klingons!” I said. “Aren’t they supposed to have head ridges or something?”
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. In the original series there was some kind of disease that made their ridges go away. The only way you could tell they were Klingons were their eyebrows, their clothes, and their bad attitude.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s cool,” I said slowly, “Hey, my parents got a divorce and I live with my Mom, but I don’t have near the problems you do. Why–”
“Uh, huh. Hey, watch this part! Fight scene!”
“Speaking of fighting…Where did you learn to fight like that?”
Kirk’s brows raised. “My grandma teaches a woman’s kickboxing class. Sometimes I go. Popcorn?”
Kirk sat a large bowl of popcorn in my lap and stuffed a handful in my mouth. It was buttery sweet kettle corn. We sat together and watched a few more episodes until it turned dark. We watched Space Seed with Ricardo Montabon. He didn’t seem to get the joke when I yelled “De plane! De plane!” but he still laughed along with me. In the middle of The Ultimate Computer , Kirk took out a pair of scissors and cut me free from my “force field.” After Captain Kirk saved the day once again, Kirk turned to me. “You can go home now, Eric.”
I hadn’t realized he knew my name.
“You should go. It’s after dark and your Mom is probably worried about you.” Kirk said.
I stood ripping a few more little bits of tape from my clothes. Kirk stood also and put out his hand. I took it and shook it.
“You’re not so bad, Captain.”
Kirk smiled and nodded as if it were all just a big misunderstanding.
“All is forgiven.”
Kirk and Spock walked me to the front door. I gave Spock’s head a pat then walked outside.
“See you tomorrow, Captain Kirk.”
The tubby kid in the gold uniform and chubby cheeks smiled and waved, then shut the door behind me.

This was something I wrote a long time ago, but I really enjoyed it. I hope you did too.

One of the toughest parts of being a writer is not being able to write. As human beings, it is inevitable that we will become sick from time to time and not even be able to lift our hands much less compose a readable sentence. I suffer from terrifying debilitating painful migraines that last for days and days. Sometimes I don’t know how I even survive them…or the writing droughts they create in their wake. Since I am not on my writing par, I have decided to post one of my short stories for my 4 subscribers to enjoy.

Teri Ann Harvey
Hello Kitty
It was a morning like any other. Except for a bit of a cough, I was fine. I waddled barefoot across my cold kitchen floor to the pantry where I would begin my morning routine of rice puffed cereal with four heaping spoonfuls of sugar. Dr. Oz would say I was addicted to sugar, but I would retort that my brand of cereal was repugnant without it. In my current economic situation, cereal for a buck is a good deal, even if it has to be drowned in sugary goodness.
As I reached into the pantry, I looked down to see Ginger, my kitty, staring up at me behind hopeful yellow eyes.
“Hello kitty,” I said.
“Meow,” she replied.
“Are you hungry?”
“Meow,” she replied.
“Okay, I’ll feed you in a minute.”
“Meow.” Ginger rubbed her orange cat face against the bag of Ally Cat, cat food. I could hear the bag cringle as she nudged and banged her head against it. I sniffled and coughed and interrupted my morning cereal routine in favor of the added step of cough medicine.
The comforting orange pills were unfortunately absent from my medicine cabinet so I had to settle for those lovely aquamarine caplets. I popped the shiny pill into my mouth and washed it down with a half of a bottle of red cold medicine I had gotten from the doctor same time last year.
I cringed and shook my mouth. I attempted to take a step, but when I looked down Ginger was at my feet staring up at me, her yellow eyes wide and wanting.
“Meow,” she said.
“What?”
“Meow.”
“What?”
“MEOOOOOW.”
“Okay, I’ll feed you.”
Then my other cat entered the room. Olly Wally never said much, but his arrogant cat eyes said it all. “Feed me now, or I shall bite you.”
“Okay, I’ll feed you too.”
“You’re below me,” I thought I heard him say as I turned back toward the pantry. I peered back at him, but he only gave me his normal impertinent “I’m a starving cat” stare. I opened up two packets of cat food and Olly Wally, and Ginger feasted. Then I feasted on my own sugary cereal.
After the kitties and I were finished eating, I felt just a smidge dizzy. I walked sideways across the room to put my bowl in the sink. Ginger and Olly Wally sat at my feet, their eyes fixed on mine.
“I already fed you,” I said.
Ginger leaned back on her hind legs and stood up straight and tall.
“Uh, Teri,” Ginger said. She had the voice of Sharon Osbourne. “I know you’re not feeling well, but will you take me somewhere. I’m bored and I really want to go somewhere.”
“Uh?” I responded.
“Can we drive in your car? You never take me anywhere,” Ginger said.
“You fool,” Olly said. He sounded strangely like Antonio Banderas. “When you get into the car, you know there is only one place that she could possibly be going.”
“I don’t need to go to the vet, Teri. I just want to drive a little. Can we please drive?”
“She’ll never go for it,” Olly said. “You have to control de human.”
Olly stood on his hind legs and he stared at me with his most superior air. “You will take us somewhere. You will take us somewhere now.”
“And you will let me drive,” Ginger added excitedly.
“And you will let the screw ball drive,” Olly continued.
I sighed heavily and rubbed my temples. I did need some daytime cold medicine, and I didn’t feel like driving myself.
“Let me get my keys,” I sniffled.

I sat in the front passenger side of my car and leaned back in the seat. Ginger was at the wheel. Olly was at the gas. Somehow, magically, the keys turned in the ignition and the car was put into drive.
“Gun it!” Ginger cried, and the car moved forward as the rotund Olly Wally pressed on the gas. The engine whirred as Ginger drove frantically through our neighborhood jerking the wheel to the left and to the right.
“Don’t crash us,” I said. “Stay on the road.”
“WOO HOO,” Ginger cried. “Give it more gas, Olly!”
Olly laughed his wicked Antonio Banderas laugh and pressed on the gas. The car went faster. Then there was a stop sign.
“BREAK!” Ginger hissed. The car screeched to a halt.
“Nice driving,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“Uh…” Ginger thought about it. “I don’t know. Human vet?”
“That’s not sounding like too bad of an idea,” I replied.
“I hit de gas?” Olly asked.
I looked both ways. “Yup.”
Olly leaned on the gas and we were in motion again. Ginger held onto the steering wheel white clawed as we motored closer to town. I nodded as the kitties drove through town. Ginger was a talented chauffer. I should have the kitties drive me everywhere.
“Squirrel!” Ginger cried suddenly. “Gun it, Olly!”
Olly hit the gas enthusiastically and the car zoomed off the road and into the park. The car plowed through fences and past picnic tables. It ran through the swing set and the tire spun in the flowerbeds flinging mud, soil, and decimated flowers in the air.
“It’s going up the tree, Olly,” Ginger cried. “Let’s get it.”
“No,” I cried. “Cars can’t climb—“
CRASH BANG SMASH
“Trees,” I finished.

I climbed out of the car. Ginger and Olly jumped out the window as a crowd formed outside the wreckage I stumbled and sat down next to the heap of ruined metal. Ginger jumped into my lap and purred loudly pushing her wet nose against my arm. Olly came around the car with the dead squirrel in his mouth.
“I got heem,” Olly said.
I shook my head. I was so dizzy. Then a police officer came onto the scene. He put his hands on his hips and said, “Who is responsible for this?”
“It wasn’t me,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at my beloved kitties. “It was them!”

Thanks for reading, buy a tie dye, and have the best day you’ve ever had in your life!